Edward
by Sarcastrow
Summary: The Auror Werewolf, Lavender Brown, is accompanying Hermione and Rose on a quest in America when a very bad man draws her attention. This is stand alone Lavender Brown story from a longer work in progress. T because the topic of child kidnapping and abuse is addressed, and Lavender is angry.


_A/N this is an excerpt from a magnum opus of mine, Hermione Granger and the Quest for the Binding Stones. I'm still writing it, but some of the pieces don't properly fit in that story. This is one that can stand alone._

_In my verse Lavender became a werewolf after the battle. I have good rational for this, and it's all explained in Sisters of the Moon and the Moon in the Arms of Night. She and Seamus are married and are the security detail for the Potter and Weasley children._

_Here we have Lavender, Hermione, and Rose in America, El Paso, Texas. Hermione is on a mission to find the stones that bind the elves to service, and Rose is her research partner. Lavender is of course along as security. We open in dingy basement with no windows…._

Edward

The handcuffs were cutting into her wrists, but that was the least of Lindsey Cunningham's worries. She awoke from her troubled sleep on the filthy mattress in her basement prison, and all her memories of how she got there rushed forward into her mind. Yesterday, _Oh god, was it only yesterday?_ She'd been walking home from school with her friends. She'd just stopped to tie her shoe lace, just for a moment, and her friends had walked on ahead of her. Suddenly an arm went around her waist and a sweet smelling cloth had been pressed against her mouth and nose.

She'd awoken here, with him.

"My name's, Edward," he had said. "We're going to be special friends."

She shuddered and broke into sobs. He'd done things to her, and he'd made her do things to him. It had gone on for hours that had felt like days, and she had come to realize that he was the Texas Tornado. He had been in the news a lot, and the teachers and parents had been talking about being safe because of him. She blamed herself for getting caught, it was a stupid thing to do, and she was smarted than that.

Lindsey shook with sobs and shouted until her throat was raw. "HELP ME! SOMEONE, HELP ME!"

"Oh, god," Hermione said as she read the morning paper.

Lavender looked up from her guide book on El Paso. "What?"

Hermione gazed solemnly across the table at her friend, and she could see the future as clearly as if it was written out before her. She would show Lavender the news article, and the more Lavender read about the man who took young girls for his toys the more incensed she would become. Lavender would look up at her and then nod at Rose, indicating that she was passing Rose's primary protection duties over to her mother, and then the werewolf Lavender Brown would rise from her chair and find this man. Hermione knew all this in a flash. She also knew that when Lavender did find him, and find him she would, Lavender would not leave him alive. It wasn't in her nature.

"What, Hermione?" Lavender had now sensed the change in her friend.

Hermione glanced at her daughter, her face hidden by the book "Legends of the _Anasazi Indians"_ they had found in the local library. A choice was before her. She could say "Nothing," and Lavender wouldn't pursue it, but then the man would continue. He would kill the girl he had taken, find another, and kill her too. Her other option was to show the paper to Lavender, but that way lay blood and death, and she was loath to add to the already heavy stains on Lavender's hands. She looked back at her friend.

The blonde woman's eye's narrowed. She, after all, was Luna's best student, and keeping a secret from her was not an easy task. In the end Hermione simply decided that it was this man's fate to meet Lavender Brown. Hermione heaved a sigh of defeat. "Here," she said as she slid the paper across the table, and she indicated the article on the front page below the fold.

Martin Whitewolf Apparated into the bedroom of Lindsey Cunningham. There was a flurry of movement and suddenly a wand tip was pressing against is throat. A strong hand pushed him against the wall and a beautiful blonde woman stood before him. "Who are you?" she asked gruffly.

She was very beautiful, her long blonde hair framing an ageless, almost regally sculptured face. "Martin Whitewolf, Auror," he answered. His head cocked to the side. "And you're English. This house is off limits, honey."

The wand never wavered. "Why?"

He watched as she backed away from him; looking him over. He couldn't help but feel as if he was being judged in some way. "The Muggles have a problem, and that problem took the girl that lives here." He answered calmly.

She was stunning, but in the depths of those emerald green eyes he saw a terrible cold. "Yes, I know."

A chill ran down his skin at her words. "Listen, honey, just what the Sam hell do you think you're doing."

"Finding a missing girl," Lavender said as she lowered her wand and resumed scanning the room for clues.

He shook his head as he watched her. Her methods were impeccable, but she would find nothing. "The Tornado's taken her; they only turn up dead after that."

"So I've read" Her green eyes bored into his, and her voice betrayed her fury. "And you let him continue?"

"We don't interfere with the Muggles."

When she smiled there was no mirth in it. "Well I'm about to."

His heart leapt into his throat, she was scaring the crap out of him. "Just who the fuck do you think you are, little lady?"

She turned and smiled sweetly. That same smile had disarmed so many men over the years, and he was no different. "Lavender Brown, Auror. Perhaps you've heard of me?"

"You're… I… " he stammered. "I read The Good Wolf to my kids all the time." He looked her in wonder. "Hot damn you're fast. No one's ever got the drop on me before." He smiled and his expression changed to one of admiration. "It's really you, huh?"

"Yes, Auror Whitewolf, it's really me," Lavender replied, not looking at him as she leafed through the girls papers.

The man smiled and shook his head. "The poor fucker." Martin had been an Auror for eighteen years, and in all that time he had never met anyone like the woman before him. She exuded power. He knew, without having to analyze why, that she could kill him without mussing her dress. And he knew the book well, he knew what Lavender was under her cultured English exterior. His eyes met hers. "He vanishes."

Lavender let out a small snort and gave him a curt nod. "Of course."

He turned to go and then turned back. "Oh, and this conversation never happened, sweetheart, and you were never here." He turned on his heal and was gone. Lavender nodded, _good man, _she thought. Lavender had the girls scent memorized, now it was time to find her. She went to the dresser and plucked a hair from the brush. She could use it to precisely locate the missing girl, but she wanted to meet this "Tornado" fellow first, so instead of the finding charm she chose a different tactic. A small hand mirror sat next to the brush. She flipped it face up, laid the hair across it and spoke an old incantation._Malum captus vos__! __Ostendo mihi suus visio!__Ostendo mihi suus locus!_

The mirror glowed blue and the face of a short thin man in his early thirties appeared in it. Lavender committed his face to memory and then said "_locus."__ Place. _The mirror showed her a doorway with "122 Lamar St." in faded red letters, and then another door with "34" on it. She pointed her wand at the mirror and said, "_Portus."_

Lavender stalked down the dingy hallway, her wolf half could feel him, and more she could smell him. He was covered in the lingering scent of the girl, and Lavender's wolfself glowed with rage. _Oh, he's all yours, my sweet, _she thought, and she felt that side of her prance in anticipation. "_Muffliato," _she said quietly and flicked her wand over her shoulder as she approached the door. "Edward Warden" was printed roughly on the paper slip in the plaque under the apartment number. She traced his name with her fingers. _Well, Edward Warden, enjoy your last few moments of peace._ Lavender chuckled, a Muggle story she had read the Potter and Weasley children over the years popping into her head. She smiled as she knocked on the door. "Little pig, little pig, let me come in." she said.

"Who the fuck are you, bitch?" a gruff male voice said from behind the door.

"The big bad wolf," she said low and rough

There was a long pause. "What? Fuck you, get the fuck out of here."

She chuckled again. "Not by the hair of your chinny, chin, chin." Lavender said high and questioningly. "Well, alright then, I'll huff,"-she wordlessly banished her clothes into her satchel-"And I'll puff," -the transformation to her wolfself began-"and I'll blow your house in! _Bombarda!_" her voice had become a violent growl as the transformation finished. A blast of red light left the tip of Lavenders wand, and the door exploded into fragments. A small weedy man was picking himself up off the floor when Lavender strode through the remains of the door, pounced on him, and pinned him to the floor.

She had one clawed hand on his chest and the other griped his chin. Lavender forced him to meet her eyes inches from his. "Good morning, Edward," she said. His scream, high and loud, was music to her ears. "Where is Lindsey Cunningham?" Her voice was even more menacing than usual in her wolf form.

Edward Warden was master of the world. He was a living god walking among the lesser beings, plucking his toys from among them, and watching them weep at their graves when he was done. Nothing could harm him, nothing could touch him, but that was before a waking nightmare had crossed his threshold and driven his orderly world into madness. "No! No! Get away from me!" he screamed as he struggled. Edward slapped at her arms and swung wildly at her until he landed a lucky punch to her jaw, drawing her full attention back to him. Lavender released his jaw and grasped his right foot. She looked back into his eyes and twisted it the wrong way round, the sickening crunch as his ankle dislocated was accompanied by another even louder and higher pitched scream.

"Where is Lindsey Cunningham?" she asked coldly.

He struggled and tried to kick at her with his good foot, but Lavender was ten times stronger than he was and schooled in physical combat, he couldn't touch her. "Help! Oh god, somebody help me!" he shouted.

Lavender grasped his jaw and forced him to look into her eyes again as she bent low over him, her nose an inch from his. "No one is coming to save you, Edward, and god certainly isn't." She paused for a moment. "Where is Lindsey Cunningham?"

"Fuck you," he yelled.

"Incorrect answer, 10 points deduction," Lavender said in a thoroughly sarcastic imitation of Professor Snape, and then she reached down and crushed his right knee. _ He has a magnificent falsetto,_ she thought."Where is Lindsey Cunningham?"

The man laughed after his scream of pain died away. "You'll… You'll kill me as soon as I tell you, why the fuck should I?"

Lavender pushed him roughly down on the floor with one hand, and then she carved a quarter inch deep grove from his left nipple to his navel with a claw on the other. "Because, Edward, if you tell me the truth now it will be dramatically less painful… dramatically." To emphasize the point she shoved the same claw through his cheek and popped a tooth out of his jaw. "Where is Lindsey Cunningham?" Lavender waited a full minute for Edward to stop howling from the pain. Her wolf half was thoroughly enjoying herself.

"Alright," he said as he spat blood from his mouth. "Alright I'll tell you, just, fuck this hurts, just let me take you there."

"No, _I'll_ take _you_. Where is she?"

"A warehouse, a warehouse by the Railroad tracks." _If I can get her out of here maybe I can get away,_ he thought, and then,_ a fucking werewolf! I'm so important they sent a fucking werewolf after me. _ Edward smiled at his own importance. _Yeah, she can't kill me. They'll want me._

Lavender, having cast _Legilemens_ on him as she entered the room, heard every bit of his internal dialog. She smirked. "Show me." He was hauled to his feet, and he gave another cry of pain as his right leg collapsed. Lavender held him upright by his belt, and a map suddenly appeared on his table. "Where?"

"Here, here," he stabbed his finger down on a spot near the rail yard

Lavender studied the map for a moment, wrapped her left arm around him and grasped his throat with her long clawed right hand. "Don't do anything stupid…er."

The world was crushed out of existence, and Edward though he was dead for a moment, then he landed hard on the asphalt in the alley next to the warehouse. "Where," Lavender asked in the same tone.

"How did you do that? What the fuck are you?"

Lavender grabbed his manhood and began to squeeze. "Answer. The. Question."

"Around in front there's a door!" he shouted. _Somebody will see us and call the cops. You don't see a six and a half foot tall werewolf walking around El Paso every day._

A strange tingle traveled from his head to his feet. He was lifted off the ground by his belt and he almost hit his face on the concrete as his legs swung up. Lavender carried as easily as she carried her bag. Edward tried to yell but found his whole body was stiff and he couldn't move it. He couldn't speak, all he could do was blink and breathe. He saw the concrete change to the worn side walk outside the ware house and saw the feet of a passing man walk by. _ What the fuck? That guy didn't even see us. What the fuck?" _He saw the doormat with the logo of the storage warehouse his father had left him on it. _She'll need me to open the door._

"No, I won't. _Alohamora._" Lavender said, and the door swung open. She stepped inside and closed the door. "_Finite_. Where?" he could move again and she swung him up to stand on his one good leg.

"What the hell are you?" For the first time Edward was beginning to suspect he was in far deeper trouble than just getting caught by some shadowy government agency.

"I ask the questions. You answer them, or I start hurting you again; where?"

He was actually starting to feel real fear as opposed to shocked terror. "Okay, okay, down the hall, three doors, there's a stairway down to the basement."

She didn't even look at him. "Come on." He came off his feet again as Lavender picked him up by his belt. This time his face slammed hard into the linoleum of the floor.

"Ow! Fuck. Aren't you going to say sorry?"

"No."

He saw the floor speed by and heard her open the door to the basement stairs. _How's she getting through all these locked doors_? Then his injured leg took all his attention as she drug him down the stairs, his legs bouncing off each one. He screamed in agony as she hurled him against the wall of the basement. Then he was frozen again.

Lavender suppressed the urge from her wolfself to kill him right then as she surveyed the fetid room and the bed with the girl chained to it. Lindsey Cunningham looked at Lavender with an expression of stark terror.

"Sssshhh," Lavender said as she crossed the room to the bed where the girl lay cuffed and shackled. "It's okay, it's okay, I won't hurt you. I'm here to take you home."

Lindsey thought she was going insane. The Texas Tornado had taken her and he had done horrible things to her. She was dead and she knew it, but now a creature from some kind of horror movie was telling her that she would be going home. Her mind was barely hanging on. Her orderly middleclass American world had been shattered into a surreal nightmare.

"Don't be afraid." The werewolf said in a British woman's voice. "I'm going to unchain you. Don't try to stand right away."

"Al… alright."

"My name is Lavender," the werewolf said. A ball of red light shot from Lavender's wand into the handcuffs on Lindsey's wrists, and the locks sprung open. A second later the shackles fell from her ankles. Lavender gently helped her to sit upright, and then she turned and they both looked at the broken man on the floor. "Now, what _shall_ we do with Edward here?" The werewolf's voice was so full of rage that Lindsey had a very brief moment of pity for him.

Edward looked into his latest toy's eyes, and he knew what she was thinking; he could see it plain as day written in her expression. The werewolf waved what he now thought of as a wand at him and he was unfrozen again. "I have rights! You... you can't treat me like this. You can't kill me, the people that sent you will want me for study," Edward blubbered. Now that he had no leverage his position had become increasingly clear to him.

Lavender shook her head. "Nobody sent me, Edward; I came for you all on my own, and I think we know everything about you that we need to know," she said coldly. "You're a sadistic, sexually twisted, piece of garbage. You kidnap and rape young girls, and then you kill them and do it again." She turned to Lindsey, who sat shaking on the bed. "Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back."

Lindsey looked at her savior. "No, don't leave me. Please."

Lavender knelt next to the bed and hugged the girl. "I'll be just a few seconds, really." She stroked the Lindsey's hair as she cried on her shoulder. "Do you have a favorite song, Lindsey?"

"Yes, A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes, my mom used to sing it to me before bedtime."

Lavender looked in the girl's eyes. "Sing it to yourself. I'll be well back before you finish." She hugged the trembling girl once more, stood, and turned to Edward.

"What are you doing?" Edward asked as his captor strode across the room to him.

"Taking out the trash," Lavender said with a smirk. A small glass phial appeared in her hand. She ripped a lock of hair from his head and stuffed it into the phial while he yelled his protest. Then she shoved the phial into her satchel, grabbed his arm, and Disapparated.

Edward had time to see the beach and smell the salt air before the crushing darkness enveloped him again. The world came back as a rush of air. He was falling.

"Goodbye, Edward," the werewolf shouted as they fell, and then she vanished. He hit the water hard.

Coughing and spluttering he broke the surface and gasped. She had left him, dropping him into the ocean. The salt water stung the host of cuts and gashes he had taken from his encounter with the werewolf, and his ankle, mouth, chest, and knee were sources of agony, but he was alive and a strong swimmer. He knew he'd make land, and Edward laughed. _What? You thought I'd just give up and drown? You're as stupid as the rest of them, ugly bitch. _Edward Warden wasn't done yet. He spat some foamy, bloody water from his mouth and started painfully swimming in the direction he was sure was north.

He didn't see the first shark until almost three hours later.

Lavender reappeared in the basement prison and gathered Lindsey in her arms. "Let's get you home," she said softly.

"What did you do with Edward?" she asked, wide eyed.

"He's fish food."

The sensation that followed was the strangest thing Lindsey had ever felt. The whole world went dark, and then it felt as if she was a rubber band that had been stretched almost to the breaking point and then let snap back into shape. She shook her head and looked around. Her own familiar bed was in front of her and she dropped down onto it. She was home. As she sat on the bed she looked up into the werewolf's eye's and began to shiver and weep in earnest. "Thank you, thank you, Lavender. I'll never forget you." The tears flowed harder. "I'll never forget any of this."

Lavender, with her wand in her hand, sat on the bed and gathered the shaking, tortured girl in her arms. She stroked her hair and held her while she shook with sobs. The werewolf kissed the top of girls head and smiled down at her as their eyes met for the last time. "Fortunately for everyone, Lindsey, yes, yes you will."

"Everything fine?" Hermione asked, as Lavender joined her and Rose at the table in the small diner.

"Oh yes, all sorted." She straightened her dress, looked up, and caught the eye of the waiter across the room.

Rose's face was hidden behind Hermione's copy of Advanced Potion Making. Lavender looked at her and shook her head. "Good evening, Rose, a little light reading?"

Rose's voice floated over the top of the book. "Good evening, Aunt Lavender. Just getting ready for September"

"September three years from now," Lavender said, chuckling

"So the Muggles problem is solved?" Hermione said knowingly.

Lavender pulled the phial from her bag. And set it on the table. Edwards's hair was clearly visible. "Soon," she said.

Hermione grasped the situation immediately. "Keeping track?"

Lavender nodded and looked out of the window, staring into infinity. "Sun's low on the horizon." She said in a faraway voice. "Certainly would be a bad time to be swimming around in the open ocean whilst one was bleeding."

Hermione's eyes widened in shock. "You didn't," she said in a whisper.

Lavender met her gaze, an ice cold hint of a grin on her face, and the two women shared a moment of understanding.

Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head. "And the girl?"

"All healed and safe at home with no memories that hurt," Lavender said, looking pleased.

Lavender was still smiling when the waiter appeared

"Something to drink, mam?"

Lavender sniggered. "I'm not the queen." She chuckled again. "Water please, and I'm ready to order."

"What would you like?"

"The biggest, rarest steak you have," Lavender answered.

"That's a thirty two ounce porterhouse, um, miss. Perhaps you'd like the 16 once New York?"

Lavender looked at him and smirked. "The porterhouse, and don't cook it more than three minutes." She handed him the menu with an air of authority. "No more than three minutes. Understood?"

"Yeah, okay," he said with doubt in his voice. "Baked, mashed or fries?"

"Just the steak."

"And your salad?"

She looked up at him from under her eyebrows. "Just the steak."

"Um, uh, yes mam, miss. Okay." he scurried away.

"Sweets for the sweet?" Hermione asked, grinning.

Lavender smiled. "She was very helpful today; I thought I'd treat her."

Rose's face appeared over the top of the book. "Aunt Lavender, look," she said, pointing to the phial. The hairs were glowing.

Lavender grin grew fierce. "Au revoir, Edward," she said. The hairs suddenly went very bright and turned to ashes. Lavender looked up into Hermione's eyes again. "Problem solved."

Rose looked at her mother and nanny. She had pieced everything together. "You saved that girl in the Muggle newspaper today, didn't you, aunt Lavender?"

Lavender nodded at her. "Yes, Rosie, I did."

Rose looked at the phial of ashes. "And the man that took her. No one needs to worry about him ever again, do they?"

"No, they don't"

Rose looked at her nanny with a huge grin. "I love you, Aunt Lavender."

Lavender patted her hand. "I love you too, Rosie."

_Malum captus vos__! (Evil has taken you), __ostendo mihi suus visio!__ (show me his face), __ostendo mihi suus locus!__ (show me his place)._

"_locus."__ (Place)._


End file.
